Former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling Released From Prison To Halfway House

Houston, Texas, USA : Former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling was released from a minimum-security prison in Alabama and moved to a halfway house on Thursday after serving 13 years for his role in Enron’s epic collapse.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons confirms Skilling is now at a halfway house. The U.S. Bureau of Prisons records listed Skilling as being at a residential re-entry facility in Houston.

Skilling was convicted of conspiracy, fraud and insider trading in 2006.

Skilling, 64, was convicted of 12 counts of securities fraud, five counts of making false statements to auditors, one count of insider trading and one count of conspiracy in 2006 for his role in hiding debt and orchestrating a web of financial fraud that ended in the Houston company’s bankruptcy.

Some 20,000 people lost their jobs and many lost their life savings when Enron filed for bankruptcy in 2001. It was the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history.

The Enron scandal led to widespread federal accounting reforms for corporations.

In 2012, the Supreme Court rejected Skilling’s request for a new trial.

He was sentenced to 24 years in prison but that was later reduced to 14 years. In 2013, U.S. District Judge Simeon Lake reduced his 24-year jail term to 14 years, accepting a deal struck between prosecutors and Skilling’s lawyers to end years of appeals. Under the deal, more than $40 million of Skilling’s fortune, which had been frozen since his conviction in 2006, was to be distributed to victims of Enron’s collapse.

Enron’s spectacular collapse cost investors billions of dollars and wiped out the retirement savings — not to mention the jobs — of thousands of employees.

Enron founder Kenneth Lay also was found guilty of multiple counts of conspiracy and fraud. He died of heart failure six weeks after the trial ended, prompting a federal judge to throw out the conviction.

Skilling had been serving his time in a minimum security “prison camp” in Montgomery, Alabama, according to a federal database.

Skilling is scheduled to be released from the halfway house on February 21, 2019.